Implementation of the Prevent Strategy

The Prevent strategy, part of the Government’s wider counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST, seeks to deal with those individuals and groups promoting division and hatred, and with the factors that predispose individuals or groups to respond to terrorist ideologies. Inherited from the previous Labour Government, the strategy was recast in 2011 under the Coalition Government in order to separate out the community based integration work from the more direct counter-terrorism activities. Under Prevent public sector organisations are subject to a duty to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. This duty was recently placed on a statutory footing by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, together with guidance setting out how different sectors should play their part in implementing the strategy.

Prevent has been the subject of criticism and the decision to impose a statutory duty on public sector organisations has been particularly controversial.